Remembrance
by pagerunner
Summary: Shepard gets a message from Thane, and it's Garrus who finds her reading it. Set during Mass Effect 3; spoilers through Priority: Citadel 2.


Garrus was the one to find her first, and she supposed she shouldn't have been surprised.

She'd lost track of time. Upon returning to the Normandy after the Citadel disaster, Shepard had eventually shoved off her crew's ill-advised attempts to speak to her about Kaidan's return - not, she thought bitterly, her prime concern just now - and retreated somewhere quiet to think. She didn't go to her cabin. She went a deck below the bridge instead. There, one of her crew members was somberly adding Thane's name to the memorial wall, and Shepard watched until long after he was done, fixing that image into her head until the letters fairly burned.

Then she looked up, fought to refocus her vision, and saw the life support room. Almost without conscious thought, she walked inside and shut the door. It was there that she stood, her datapad held tightly in both hands, until she heard her name called from the other side of the door.

Her head lifted. "Garrus?" she said. The reply was muffled, but undoubtedly an affirmative.

"Yes. Can I come in?"

Shepard didn't quite manage a reply, but he came in regardless. Shepard leaned against the wall, folding her arms around the datapad and holding it to her chest like a shield. "Hey," she said inadequately.

"Shepard. We… didn't really get a chance to talk properly, after we got back." He edged closer, obviously taking note of her body language, the dimness of the empty room, Thane's conspicuously unoccupied chair. "I wanted to see if you were all right. Thought I might find you in here."

"You know me too well, Garrus."

"Well, you go to hell and back with somebody a few times…." He paused. "I know what happened back there was worse than most."

The room around her seemed to blur, all its sterile medical equipment suggesting another room entirely: the hospital, its pointless machinery, the deathbed. "Yeah," she said. "It was."

"I'm so sorry."

She took a deep breath, and glanced down. Garrus followed her gaze and quietly asked, "What are you reading?"

Shepard hesitated. She wanted to talk to someone, she _had_ to, but she couldn't seem to get the words out. Still, if there was anyone here right now she could trust, it would be Garrus. She decided to try. "It's….a letter," she said, working her way up to it. "From Thane."

"Oh."

"He meant for me to see it after he died."

He said "oh" again, but more softly this time.

"The stupid thing is, I've known about it for months." Her jaw worked and she swallowed hard. "Liara had it in her goddamned files-"

Shepard stopped herself. She kept finding herself on this edge of anger and desperation, and she hated it. _Thane wouldn't want this,_ she thought. She took another breath and made her arms relax. The datapad tilted, letting her see the first few words. _Siha…._

"It's not even Liara's fault," Shepard said quietly. "The first Shadow Broker got to it before she did. We all had dossiers. This was in Thane's. I saw it then and realized what it was, and stopped myself from reading the whole thing - but I knew. I never told him, couldn't bear to, but I knew it was coming. And still…."

"Makes it all real, doesn't it?"

Shepard moved one hand and touched the screen. "It was real enough when I was there, saying goodbye. But this makes it permanent, somehow. And it's…."

She trailed off again, then grimaced at herself. "Listen to me. I can't even finish a sentence, Garrus. I can't _think._"

He shook his head. "Shepard. Just… here. Sit down."

She looked at the chair. All she could think of was Thane being there, and it made her eyes sting. But Garrus said quietly, "It's all right," and so she sat. The datapad she placed on the table. From a distance, the faint illumination only suggested letters, something that could have said anything, something that could still yet be untrue.

But she'd been at his side. She knew.

"I've lost a lot of people," Shepard said. "I'm probably going to lose more. But this one hurts."

Garrus pulled over a supply crate and sat beside her, a little awkwardly. He braced his hands on his knees. "I wish I knew what to say. It's bad enough to lose someone in battle, but… this damned disease. The thought that he could have…."

He didn't finish that sentence either, but Shepard knew what he meant: _could have recovered._ She looked down. "Damn it," Garrus muttered. "I'm not helping."

"No, it's… I've thought the same thing." She made a face. "I keep trying to remind myself of what Thane would say. He'd be all philosophical about it., I'm sure."

Garrus made a small, dryly amused sound. "That he would."

"And I know that it was really still the disease that killed him. We _knew_ that was coming. He was prepared. And despite how sick he was, he did his damnedest to take that assassin down, and he almost… he almost did it." Her voice roughened. "I just wish it had worked."

Garrus grimaced. "So do I."

Shepard touched the edge of the datapad. "Thane… he went with such _grace_. I want to be worthy of that. Of everything he ever believed of me." She thought of his prayer, and everything he said in the letter, and her vision hazed. She blinked hard until it cleared. "But it's still not stopping me from wanting that Cerberus bastard's head on a platter."

"I'll back you up on that," Garrus said. "Hell, I'll buy you the damn platter. But remember, Shepard. You've taught me a few things about vengeance in your day. Don't let it eat at you like this."

She leaned her head into her hand, elbow propped against the table. "I know," she said. "I know."

"Just try to go easier on yourself."

"I've been told that before."

"Then maybe you better take the hint and stop being as stubborn as your average krogan," Garrus said. Shepard's lips twitched upward. It wasn't a smile, but it was something close. Then she looked at the datapad again. The message. She held her breath.

"I think I want you to read the letter," she said.

Garrus looked wary. "Oh, now, I don't know. That's private-"

"Yes. But… I want someone to understand." She paused. "Someone who isn't just playing Little Miss Compulsive Data-Gatherer, anyway. Please."

He hesitated. Shepard sighed and pushed the datapad closer to him. Garrus finally took the hint, holding it up for a closer look. Shepard watched as he made his way through; his shoulders tensed and he shook his head, and his voice lowered almost past hearing. "Oh, Shepard," he murmured.

Somehow the gentleness of it was what made her start to shake.

"That's what I've lost," she said. Garrus raised his head. "Thane was gentler with me than I ever could be. He loved me so deeply it was humbling. And he - he was just such a beautiful soul…." Her voice caught, but she forced herself to finish. "I loved him so much, Garrus. I can't stand that he's gone."

This time the tears silently fell, no matter how she tried to stop it from happening. She turned aside, feeling ashamed, but Garrus reached out to grasp her shoulder. "Hey," he said. "It's all right…."

"No," she whispered. "It's not."

Garrus sighed, momentarily at a loss. Then he said, "Listen, Shepard. I don't know exactly where this falls in the rulebook of human-turian relations, but… I'm pretty sure this situation calls for some sort of hug."

Despite herself, she let out a watery, weary laugh. "A hug?"

"Yes. Come on; you can't carry all this alone. It's why you wanted me to read that letter in the first place. And you're so tense you're trembling."

"But I'm the grand and fearsome Commander Shepard," she said, with much irony and little humor. She was still holding herself stiffly. "I'm supposed to be strong for everyone else. I can't be doing this."

"Janna." The sudden use of her first name gave her pause, and she looked at him, really looked at him. He took the opportunity to give her what looked much like a conspiratorial wink. "I promise I won't tell."

Shepard swiped her cheeks dry with both hands, then sighed and let herself be tugged close enough that she could lean her head on Garrus' shoulder. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but she had to admit, it was comforting. With a little, broken-sounding sigh, she let him take her weight. Habit tried to make her mumble an apology or an excuse. He shushed her and held on while her breathing steadied.

"Don't ever worry about being worthy of him," he said. "You were. You _are_. We all think you're something special." She breathed in raggedly; at the sound, he gently squeezed her shoulders. "Of course," he added, "most of us are a lot less naturally poetic about it than he was."

Shepard made a noise somewhere between a snort and a laugh, and no small amount of a sob, but in the end, the laughter won. She slowly straightened back up. "Great," she said, wiping one cheek again. "Now I'm trying to imagine what EDI might come up with as a poem."

"Don't hurt yourself," Garrus advised. "That might be more than the universe could handle."

Shepard smiled. For a minute neither of them said anything, just took the time to recenter themselves. Then Garrus asked, "You okay?"

"Yeah, I think so. Or I'll get there, anyway."

"That's my girl."

Shepard reached up and - rather to the surprise of both of them - touched his cheek. "Thank you," she said. "I'm glad you're here." Then she got up before he could say anything else. "I need to see what's going on in the CIC."

Garrus nodded and backed up to let her go, but he stopped her at the last with a reminder.

"Don't forget this," he said, holding out the datapad. Shepard reached out and touched it, letting her fingers linger on Thane's name. She'd read it so many times now that she could almost hear it, his strange and wonderful voice burring at the edges of her thoughts.

_I can hope that time will treat you with kindness,_ she heard, _and dim the hurt of my passing…._

"I hope so too," she whispered. Garrus looked briefly puzzled, but she smiled, and gently pushed the datapad back into her friend's hands.

"It's all right," she said. "You can leave it here."

"You sure?"

"There's something about spending that much time with a drell," she said, to a look of silent understanding, "that teaches you about remembering things by heart."

Shepard turned then and quietly left the room, her head filled with Thane's words and his wishes for her, and the imagined sound of the sea.


End file.
